David Filner assumed the administrative leadership of the San Antonio Symphony in November, 2012. Led by Music Director Sebastian Lang-Lessing, the San Antonio Symphony is celebrating its 73rd year this season.

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

The Last Seven Words

In 1785 or 1786 Haydn was commissioned to compose an orchestral work called The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour On the Cross. The work was designed for a performance at the Good Friday service at the Cádiz Cathedral in Spain. Haydn later adapted it for string quartet and also for chorus. It remains the most famous work composed for Good Friday.

The piece includes seven slow sections that are mediations on each of the last seven words or phrases spoke by Jesus on the Cross. The tradition of using this text on Good Friday dates from the 16th century. The phrases are:

1 Father forgive them, for they know not what they do
2 Today you will be with me in paradise
3 Behold your son: behold your mother
4 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me
5 I thirst
6 It is finished
7 Father, into your hands I commit my spirit

Haydn added in introduction and a final movement called Earthquake.

Haydn wrote this about his composition:

Some fifteen years ago I was requested by a canon of Cádiz to compose instrumental music on the Seven Last Words of Our Savior On the Cross. It was customary at the Cathedral of Cádiz to produce an oratorio every year during Lent, the effect of the performance being not a little enhanced by the following circumstances. The walls, windows, and pillars of the church were hung with black cloth, and only one large lamp hanging from the center of the roof broke the solemn darkness. At midday, the doors were closed and the ceremony began. After a short service the bishop ascended the pulpit, pronounced the first of the seven words (or sentences) and delivered a discourse thereon. This ended, he left the pulpit and fell to his knees before the altar. The interval was filled by music. The bishop then in like manner pronounced the second word, then the third, and so on, the orchestra following on the conclusion of each discourse. My composition was subject to these conditions, and it was no easy task to compose seven adagios lasting ten minutes each, and to succeed one another without fatiguing the listeners; indeed, I found it quite impossible to confine myself to the appointed limits.

Here is a video of Riccardo Muti and the orchestra from La Scala performing the final section, which depicts an earthquake.